1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a quantitative powder-providing module and, more particularly, to a quantitative powder-providing module adaptive to a 3D prototyping mechanism.
2. Description of Related Art
Rapid Prototyping technology, which is abbreviated as RP technology, is a technology derived from the idea, which stacking of plural layers forms the pyramid. The RP technology enables the rapid and low-cost realization of an idea raised by a designer in a short period of time, for the presentation to the public. The main feature of the RP technology is the rapid realization, which can transform a design projection having any kind of complicated shape into a 3D entity model, both automatically and rapidly, without the need to employing any cutters, mold, and jig. Thus, the RP technology can shorten the research & development cycle of a new product significantly and the research & developing cost thereof, ensure the appearance of the new product to the market at a pre-determined date, and raise the successful percentage of the one-time developing process of the new product. The RP technology also provides a more complete and more convenient product-design communication tool, not only between different technicians, but also between technicians and non-technology personnel, for example, the decision-maker of an enterprise or the user of the new product. As a result, both of the competitive ability of the new product in the market, and the rapid-responding ability of the enterprise to the change of market are increased significantly.
Currently, the RP technology has been developed to a point that it combines the project-printing technology, with the precision-positioning technology of the vehicle together, for manufacturing a 3D entity model. The manufacturing process of the RP technology now includes: paving a layer of constructive powder on the vehicle, and ink-projecting printing high-viscosity gluing liquid on portions of the paved constructive powder, wherein the high-viscosity gluing liquid and the constructive powder are sticking with each other and curing. The above manufacturing process should be repeated for many times, in order to stack the layers together to form the 3D entity model.
During the paving process of powder, the provision of the constructive powder can be divided into two categories, i.e. the bottom powder-provision and the top powder-provision. In the top powder-provision, the thickness of the powder being paved is determined by the provision of the constructive powder of a fixed amount. But, the amount of powder provided in this manner is quite difficult to be controlled. Besides, in the prior art, the constructive powder is provided through the rotation of the powder-propelling roller located inside the powder-providing tank. However, the area of every cross-section of the recess structure of the conventional powder-propelling roller is the same, which means the amount of the falling powder in every unit-length is the same.
Please refer to FIG. 1, which is a schematic diagram displaying the conventional paving of powders. As shown in FIG. 1, during the paving of powder, due to the above-mentioned reasons, the amount of the powder paved at the center is much larger than that of the powder paved at the two sides, causing the powder cannot be paved evenly over a whole surface and making the difference between the amount of the constructive powder at the center and that of the constructive powder at the two sides being increased with the number of times of paving powder.
Therefore, a quantitative powder-providing module capable of obviating the drawbacks of the conventional powder-providing device is demanded by the industry.